The Trump campaign blasted Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as a “dangerously liberal extremist,” while warning that their vision for the country is “every Americans’ nightmare.”
Waltz was tapped as Harris’ vice presidential pick Tuesday morning. The 60-year-old is a former congressman and is in his second term as the governor of Minnesota – a state that Democrats have reliably won in presidential elections for decades but that the Trump campaign has aimed at flipping this cycle.
Recently, Walz attacked former President Trump and his running mate JD Vance as “weird,” a viral insult the Harris campaign has embraced.
The Trump campaign, though, blasted Walz for his liberal policies and views, which they say complement Harris perfectly.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS NAMES MINNESOTA GOV. TIM WALZ AS HER RUNNING MATE: AP
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz arrives to speak at a press conference regarding new gun legislation on Aug. 1, 2024, in Bloomington, Minnesota. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
“It’s no surprise that San Francisco Liberal Kamala Harris wants West Coast wannabe Tim Walz as her running-mate – Walz has spent his governorship trying to reshape Minnesota in the image of the Golden State,” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital. “While Walz pretends to support Americans in the Heartland, when the cameras are off, he believes that rural America is ‘mostly cows and rocks’.”
“From proposing his own carbon-free agenda, to suggesting stricter emission standards for gas-powered cars, and embracing policies to allow convicted felons to vote, Walz is obsessed with spreading California’s dangerously liberal agenda far and wide,” Levitt continued.
She added: “If Walz won’t tell voters the truth, we will: just like Kamala Harris, Tim Walz is a dangerously liberal extremist, and the Harris-Walz California dream is every American’s nightmare.”
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign event at Westover High School in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on July 18, 2024. (Allison Joyce/AFP via Getty Images)
Walz can showcase a slew of progressive policy victories in Minnesota, including protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and restricting gun access to curb shootings.
Walz was elected to the House in 2006 and re-elected five times, representing Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District, a mostly rural district covering the southern part of the state that includes a number of midsize cities. During his last two years on Capitol Hill, he served as ranking member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
Walz won election as governor in 2018 and re-election four years later.
Former President Trump and Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance applaud at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 16, 2024. (Reuters/Callaghan O’hare)
WHO IS TIM WALZ? MEET THE HARRIS RUNNING MATE WHO CALLED REPUBLICANS ‘WEIRD PEOPLE’
Walz has gained attention recently with his comments about Trump and Vance.
“These are weird people on the other side, they want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room, that’s what it comes down to,” he said on MSNBC last month. “Don’t get sugarcoating this, these are weird ideas.”
Walz, however, has faced criticism for his handling of COVID-19 and riots that rocked Minneapolis in 2020, Fox News Digital previously reported.
“[H]e’s been a disaster for Minnesota and is by far the most partisan governor that I can remember having,” Minnesota GOP Chairman David Hann told Fox News Digital last week. “Going back to 2020, certainly – he did nothing to try to stop the riots going on in Minneapolis. I think he was fearful of alienating his ‘progressive’ base, who were supporting the riots. Kamala Harris was raising money for the rioters.”
Some critics point to Walz’s memorandum mandating indoor masking during the coronavirus pandemic, as well as setting up a hotline to report residents who violated COVID-19 mandates, as FOX 9 Minneapolis reported at the time.
He has also taken heat for telling a group of Democrats that socialism is what some people would call “neighborliness.”
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“Don’t ever shy away from our progressive values,” he said on a “White Dudes for Harris” call on Monday night. “One person’s socialism is another person’s neighborliness.
Harris and Walz are scheduled to kick off a campaign swing through all seven crucial battleground states starting on Tuesday, with an event in Philadelphia.